Norway taps Gemalto, DISO rebrands
05 September, 2013
category: Biometrics, Government, Smart Cards
Sarasota County Sheriff’s Dept. turns to Morpho for fingerprint identification
The Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department has adopted the MorphoBIS solution, which will be used to examine latent fingerprints and cold cases. The biometric purchase will set the county back $1.2 million, and will replace a ten-year old system with faster technology and improved algorithms that are expected to establish previously impossible matches.
The MorphoBIS system is the first of its kind and allows a latent print examiner to photograph or scan a finger or palm print card taken from a crime scene. The examiner then identifies unique points in the print and runs a search through the system.
Morpho’s solutions will enable Sarasota Sheriffs to match a latent print against the more than 500,000 persons in the sheriff’s local database, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s state database as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s national database.
Norway taps Gemalto for automated border crossing
Gemalto is equipping the Norwegian National Police Directorate with its Coesys eBorder solution, a self-service border control system leveraging electronic secure travel documents for Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport.
Based on automatic passport verification and facial recognition technology, the solution offers Norwegian citizens traveling from non-Schengen countries a faster journey through Norway’s busiest airport. Oslo Gardermoen Airport handles more than 20 million travelers a year.
The eGate, an expedited border crossing system designed to streamline the immigration clearance process, features two-stage verification. At the first step, the passport is authenticated and if approved, the traveler is enabled to move on to a second gate for automatic facial recognition. The traveler can continue his or her journey when the system confirms that the picture matches the electronic portrait securely stored on the e-passport.
To ensure protection of sensitive information, no personal data is held within the eGate system itself. Furthermore, a border control guard, who monitors the system continuously, can intervene at any point. The introduction of the eGates solution will help to eliminate bottlenecks at passport control points, while maintaining safe and secure borders.
MinuteHound reveals biometric timekeeping system
MinuteHound has launched a timekeeping system that uses a biometric scanner connected via a USB port to any computer that is connected to the internet at each of a company’s branches. Following a quick set up, each employee establishes their account by registering their fingerprint using the scanner.
Upon set up, workers can clock in and out of the time keeping system by simply placing their finger on the scanner. A light on the scanner indicates when the process is complete, processing the employee’s time information. This information is then securely encrypted and transmitted to MinuteHound’s servers located around the world.
The timesheet data obtained by MinuteHound software is kept on cloud servers, and is accessible for review or modification by authorized managers anywhere in the world, even from personal mobile devices and home computers.
GlobalPlatform: Protecting premium content on mobile devices
GlobalPlatform has launched a Premium Content Task Force to determine the relevant and necessary requirements to protect premium content on a mobile device. The first use case of the task force is protecting the download, decryption and rendering of premium content in a trusted execution environment (TEE).
Premium content includes videos, audio or e-books, which users download to their mobile device for a fee. Management and protection of premium content is a key driver for TEE adoption and a technology which is already widely deployed on consumer electronic devices. The TEE is a secure area that resides in the main processor of a smartphone (or any mobile device) and ensures that sensitive data is stored, processed and protected in a trusted environment.
The new task force is partly a response to the growing consumption of premium content on mobile devices along with the requirement for that content to be hosted in a protected and secure environment.
Digital Identifications Solutions AG changes name to Matica Technologies AG
The company formerly known as Digital Identifications Solutions (DISO) has decided to operate under the new monicker Matica Technologies AG following a merger with the German secure ID printer provider. The name change will be effective immediately, while transitions to other elements of the new brand identity will take place in phases over the next year.
Officials at Matica confirm that the new company strategy will involve global availability of its enlarged range of products and strong regional support. Part and parcel to the name change is an integration of FISO’s retransfer and secure ID printer provider with the Matica’s pre-existing, centralized high speed systems, mailers and desktop machines. The result is one of the most extensive portfolios currently on the card issuing and ID market.
